


to sleep, perchance to dream

by serenlyall



Category: Stargate - All Media Types, Stargate SG-1
Genre: Gen, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, and this fic has...BOTH, implied ptsd anyway lmao, protective teal'c is best teal'c, soft teal'c is best teal'c, uhhhhh idk what else
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-14
Updated: 2020-01-14
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:48:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22256704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/serenlyall/pseuds/serenlyall
Summary: One by one they waken, dragged from sleep by dreams of past horrors and past terrors. Yet each time, Teal'c is there.
Relationships: Daniel Jackson & Teal'c, Jack O'Neill & Teal'c, Samantha "Sam" Carter & Daniel Jackson & Jack O'Neill & Teal'c, Samantha "Sam" Carter & Teal'c
Comments: 6
Kudos: 39





	to sleep, perchance to dream

**Author's Note:**

> I started this while at work the other day, and upon sitting in Panera for 4 hours today finally finished it. I continue in my vein of writing "SG-1 suffers from PTSD" which...I confess is going to be a pretty standard theme for me (not least of all because I am dealing with my *own* PTSD through them...lmao sorry guys). Anyway, as I mentioned in my tags, soft and protective Teal'c is BEST Teal'c, and you'll get both of those here. Imo there isn't enough of that in this fandom, so it's my crusade to bring more into it.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoy!!

_To sleep – perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub,_   
_For in that sleep of death what dreams may come_

_-Hamlet_

* * *

They fall asleep in Jack’s living room, the TV still on and the pizza boxes still out and open. The crust has long since hardened, the cheese turned to cardboard—but Sam is asleep on Daniel, curled into his side as much as he is curled into the corner of the couch. His mouth is open, and he is drooling slightly, chest rising and falling with steady, even breaths. Jack snores in the loveseat, legs stretched over the left armrest.

Teal’c looks down at his friends—his brothers, his team, his family—and smiles. It had been a long, hard mission, with a battle hard-fought and hard-won at the last second. They had barely reached the Stargate and home at all, let alone alive. As it was, all of them had been injured in some form or another—though not so badly that Doctor Frazier had felt inclined to keep them overnight for observation.

Teal’c pulls a blanket off of the back of the couch and drapes it over O’Neill, then disappears toward the guest bedroom. He reappears a moment later with another blanket and a pillow. The pillow he slides beneath Daniel’s head, and the blanket he tucks around Sam, who is serving as a blanket for their archaeologist.

Once that is done, and Teal’c is confident that his team is once more deep in sleep, he sits on the floor by the coffee table and slips into a light Kel’no’reem, ready to awaken at the first sign of distress from one of his teammates.

~xXx~

Daniel is the first to awaken, with a gasp and a start. Sam had moved at some point, and he now shivers in the cool November night. He sits up, eyes flicking from door to window to hall, searching for a nonexistent threat.

When his eyes land on Teal’c he sees that the large Jaffa’s eyes are open and focused on him, and warm and dark and calming.

Daniel grins self-consciously. Tealc smiles, half a quirk of stalwart lips, and his warm eyes deepen into dark pools of understanding. He stands, and motions, and Daniel takes the unspoken invitation and eases off of the couch carefully so as not to wake Sam.

They walk together out of the house and onto the back porch. Their breath clouds before them in a fine mist, forming a halo in front of their faces. Daniel shivers again, his feet bare against frost-limned boards, fingers white where they grip the railing at waist-height.

“Do you wish to speak of what you dreamed?” Teal’c asks after a long moment.

Daniel shakes his head. Then his shoulders droop and he shrugs.

“It’s just…hard,” he confesses quietly, staring up at the stars, gleaming sharp and white and bright overhead.

“What is hard?” Teal’c prompts when Daniel falls silent again.

“Everything,” Daniel hedges. He sighs. “Sha’re,” he says at last. “I still dream about her death. And it…” He trails off again, lost amid words that will not come.

“It is hard,” Teal’c echoes softly. “You will never forget it, I fear.” He pauses, then says firmly, “But that does not mean you cannot heal from it.”

Daniel shrugs. “Not so sure about that,” he says bitterly. “She was the love of my life. _Was_. Past tense. I hate that—I can’t bear that. It’s impossible to even comprehend, let alone grieve the fact that she’s gone. I mean I _know_ she’s gone, but I spent so long searching for her that it feels like, if only I search farther, harder, deeper, _better_ , I’ll find her still alive somewhere.” He smiles, but the gesture is drowned with sorrow. “Stupid, I know.”

“Not stupid,” says Teal’c. “Denial is, I believe, part of the grieving process.”

Daniel snorts. “Maybe,” he says. He shakes his head. “No,” he says, “you’re right. I know you’re right. I just don’t know how to keep going.”

“You keep going by holding onto what you have,” says Teal’c.

“And what do I have?”

“You have us,” says Teal’c simply. “You have me, and Major Carter, and Colonel O’Neill.”

“Is that all?”

“Is that not enough.”

Daniel blinks away tears and continues to stare up at the stars for a terrible moment. Then, quietly, softly, achingly, he says, “Yes. It is.”

Teal’c smiles, a gentle curve of stalwart lips, and he reaches out to rest a hand on Daniel’s shoulder. “Let us go inside,” he says. “It is cold out here, and you are not dressed for such weather.”

In response, Daniel shivers again. He nods. They turn and reenter the house, sliding the glass door shut behind them, blocking out the cold and the night and the ever-watchful stars.

~xXx~

Sam is the next to awaken. She does so with a bitten-off cry, there and then gone in an instant. Only Teal’c, still only halfway into Kel’no’reem, hears it. Otherwise it would have been lost to the hum of the heater and the buzz of the TV.

He opens his eyes and looks at her. She is sitting bolt upright, the blanket that had been tucked around her shoulders pooling in her lap. Her eyes are wide and wild and far-distant, seeing something Teal’c cannot see, and her entire body shivers and trembles with fine tremors of tension and anxiety.

Teal’c rises and goes over to kneel in front of her. He moves slowly and carefully, and when he is settled down in front of her, he makes a great show of moving his hand until it is resting on her foot.

“Major Carter,” he says softly, pitching his voice low enough that only Sam will be able to hear him, even though Daniel is mere feet away. “Major Carter,” he says again, when she does not respond.

She takes in a deep, shuddering breath, and blinks, coming back to the present from whatever realm she was lost to. She looks at Teal’c—and she crumples. He catches her, rising up onto his knees and folding her into his arms, drawing her head down onto his shoulder and spreading his hands across her back. She shivers and shakes in the circle of his arms, face buried against his shoulder, fingers tangling in the front of his t-shirt.

They sit like that, awkward and cramping, for a long quarter of an hour. Finally, though, Sam straightens, and smears a hand across her cheeks, drying the tears that had escaped her. Teal’c nods, then rises to his feet, taking Sam’s hand in his and bringing her with him.

He guides her into the kitchen, sits her down at the table, and begins to make tea. He is silent as he takes down two mugs from the cupboard, as he fills the kettle with water, as he sets it on the stove to heat. It is not until he returns to the table himself that he speaks.

“Do you wish to speak of it?” he asks.

Sam shakes her head.

Teal’c cants his head to one side. “Was it Turghan?” he asks.

Sam grimaces. “Yes,” she says. “And no. It’s…complicated.”

“I understand,” says Teal’c—and Sam, looking at him, knows he does. Knows he understands more than he has let on, even to her. She sees it in his eyes when he looks at her in that moment—sees a deep, dark understanding of the deepest, blackest parts of humanity, and the things that pose as gods to humanity.

Sam massages her temples, her lips thin and white.

“You need not tell me anything you do not wish to,” says Teal’c.

Sam looks up at him and smiles. “Thanks, Teal’c,” she says. “I don’t think I’m ready to talk quite yet. But thank you.”

Teal’c nods, a soft smile on his lips. “When you are ready, Samantha, I will be here.”

His use of her first name forces Sam to blink back tears again, and she looks at the ceiling, as if that will keep them in. She wipes her eyes, rubs her nose, then glances at the kettle, which is steaming.

“You may want to check on the water,” she says.

Teal’c nods and rises, going over to the stove. He pulls the kettle from the heat just as it begins to whistle, and carries it over to the table and the mugs. After pouring them full of steaming water, he places two mint teabags in them, and returns the now-empty kettle to the stove.

They sit in silence as the tea steeps. Sam blows on hers, trying to cool it enough to drink, while Teal’c simply wraps a large hand around the heated pewter and basks in the warmth.

“Can I ask you a question, Teal’c?” Sam asks.

“You may,” says Teal’c.

“Do you have nightmares about what you’ve seen and done?”

“I do not dream as you dream,” he says, “nor as I once dreamed, before my symbiote. But I do have memories, which rise to the surface as I meditate.”

“How do you cope with them?” Sam asks.

Teal’c’s face is impassive when he says, “I force them away.”

“And if they come back?”

“Then I repeat the process.”

“That doesn’t sound very healthy,” comments Sam.

“Perhaps not,” says Teal’c. “But it keeps me strong and capable of fighting.”

“It’s going to come back to bite you in the ass someday,” Sam predicts.

“Most likely,” says Teal’c. “That is why Master Bre’tac was no longer First Prime.”

Sam frowns. “What do you mean?”

“Though few know this, he suffered a breakdown, engineered by memories and emotions,” says Teal’c. “Apophis believed he could no longer be trusted with his armies, even after he had recovered and proven himself strong once more, and so another First Prime was chosen—me.”

“Oh,” says Sam, not knowing entirely what to say. “I’m…I’m sorry.”

“It happens to many First Primes,” says Teal’c. “Given what we face daily, and what we suffer at the hands of our false gods…” He falls into pensive silence.

“I’m sorry,” Sam says again.

Teal’c smiles again. “You need not be sorry, Samantha,” he says. “But I thank you for your empathy.” He is silent for a moment, then he asks, “And how do you cope with your dreams and memories?”

“I…don’t,” Sam says softly. “I mean, I guess you could say I just push them all away, like you said. I suffer through them, and then I make myself stop feeling anything about them at all. It seems to work—at least for now.”

“For how long?” Teal’c asks. “How long before you buckle beneath the weight?”

Sam shudders and collapses in on herself. “I don’t know,” she says, sounding small.

“When it happens,” says Teal’c, “I will be there. As will Doctor Jackson, as will Colonel O’Neill.”

“I know,” says Sam with a smile. “I know.”

They finish their tea in silence, then Teal’c leads Sam back to the couch. She curls up against Daniel, who shifts in his sleep and wraps an arm around her shoulders, and she rests her head against his side. She falls asleep a few moments later, safe under Teal’c’s watchful gaze.

~xXx~

Jack wakes silently. One moment he is asleep, and the next he is awake, eyes open and body tense. He sits up, then stands, stretches, and moves into the kitchen to begin preparing coffee.

Teal’c stands as well and follows him, eyes briefly catching on the line of light at the eastern horizon that heralds dawn.

“Can’t sleep either?” O’Neill quips as Teal’c walks into the kitchen.

“I do not sleep,” says Teal’c straight-faced.

O’Neill grins. “I know,” he says, and finishes scooping coffee grounds into the filter. “I was joking, T.”

Teal’c, still deadpan, asks, “Were you?”

O’Neill rolls his eyes, finally realizing that Teal’c is teasing him. He shoves the coffee pot underneath the drip, then turns the machine on and props a hip against the counter as it begins to brew.

“So what has you up so early?” O’Neill asks.

“You,” says Teal’c bluntly.

“Me?” O’Neill asks, raising one eyebrow in an imitation of Teal’c. “Why me?”

“Am I wrong in believing you would like some company?”

“Hmph,” grumps O’Neill, but he does not contradict Teal’c. “Well, if you’re awake, help me fix breakfast.”

They make pancakes. Jack stirs while Teal’c adds ingredients into the mixing bowl, then they take turns spooning batter onto the griddle. After less than half an hour, the air in the kitchen is filled with the sound and smell of sizzling pancakes laced in turn with chocolate chips and blueberries.

“Do you wish to talk about what you dreamed of?” Teal’c asks as they settle down at the table, coffee mugs in hand.

O’Neill frowns. “What dreams?” he asks.

Teal’c looks at him long and hard, and is silent.

“Oh,” says O’Neill. “ _Those_ dreams. No.”

Teal’c cants his head. “Very well,” he says.

“What, you aren’t going to push me to open up about my feelings?” asks Jack acerbically.

“No,” says Teal’c bluntly. “It is not my place.”

“Damn right it’s not,” says Jack, but he is looking down at his coffee and his words are mumbled half-heartedly.

So instead they sit in silence until Jack stands to flip the golden-brown pancakes, drinking their coffee and simply existing in each other’s orbit. Jack is halfway down the griddle when Sam and Daniel walk into the kitchen, bleary-eyed and tousle haired.

“Morning,” says Daniel.

“Good morning,” says Teal’c. He shares a look with Daniel, and then with Sam, and an unspoken understanding passes between them in turn.

“Pancakes will be ready in five,” Jack says, beginning to pull down plates and knives and forks.

“Perfect,” says Sam, sitting down next to Teal’c. “Daniel, get me a mug of coffee?”

“On it,” says Daniel, already on his way to the coffee pot.

And while the sky lightens outside, inside Jack’s house SG-1 sits down to eat, chatter and the first dribbles of laughter lightening the air.

**Author's Note:**

> What did you think? Comment and let me know!


End file.
